Persuasive Essay On Criminal Justice

Fighting crime, pursuing justice, and stopping the bad guys is what criminal justice might sound like to someone who does not know too much about the field. While yes, it does come with those perks, the criminal justice system is more than that. For one minute of action is about one hour of paperwork. Being as my major is criminal justice, I would like to become a police officer someday. Knowing that it is more than just patrolling the beat, there is actual work and statistics that goes into the job. Statistics is used in the criminal justice system every single day. People report crimes daily through statistic based police reports, known as the Uniform Crime Reports, (UCR) and National Crime Victimization Survey, (NCVS). Another way statistics

Each of these collect and report data in different ways, but carry a lot of similar information. Being a rising junior in college, I have learned a huge deal of information on all three different databases that criminal justice data is reported.

The most well-known way to report any crime is through the Uniform Crime Reports. This is run by the FBI to ensure authenticity and each crime reported is taken seriously. It took off in 1997. From my knowledge of this already, I can tell you that the UCR, in fact, reports everything under the sun. In the seventh edition of the book of Criminology, it states “The UCR divide offenses into two major categories: Part I and Part II… Crimes tend to be reported to the police more reliably than others” (Adler, Laufer & Muller, 32). With that being stated, the Part I crimes include robbery, rape, burglary, homicide, and a few other serious crimes of that nature. Part II crimes, while not as serious as Part I crimes, include loitering, embezzlement, drug offenses, gambling, and so on. Their own website will also give you information on things that include crimes of terrorism, hate, white-collar, counterintelligence, public corruption, violent crimes, and much more. These crimes reported are considered the serious

Sure, they both report crimes, but the differences are in the types of crime reported. With the Uniform Crime Reports, they report more serious, threatening crimes. In the National Crime Victimization Survey, it has more of a focus on victims and individuals because it does not have to be reported by law enforcement. This gives victims a chance to report their own crimes. A huge downfall of the NCVS is that crimes go unreported because it is self-reported, victims either do not want to share or do not realize that they should be reporting to this database. In my criminology class taken at Rutgers University, I have learned that these reports are initiated to redress the issues with the UCR and to collect information on crimes suffered by individuals and households. In my book, Criminology, the authors explain, “The NCVS includes only 7 offenses… Victimization by rape, robbery, assault, larceny, burglary, personal theft, and motor vehicle theft” (Adler, Laufer & Mueller, 34). While the other database, Uniform Crime Reports does report this, it differs because the FBI is controlling that rather than victims and someone speaking from personal experience, being able to give their own information directly. Reading along in the book, it gives an example of how the get a sample of data, “Researchers for the NCVS estimate the total number of crimes committed by asking